Ep. 17 — "Four Marks" from Netflix's The Witcher (Part 1)

Jess B. from the US and Robin from the Netherlands join Alyssa from GoodMorhen for the first half of our discussion of “Four Marks”, the second episode in season one of Netflix’s The Witcher. Very important bits include: themes of romance and motherhood, the complex relationship between humans and elves on the Continent, the construction of history through storytelling and perception, the role of emotions, and Jess and Alyssa explain an innuendo.

This episode is available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.

Transcript

Cold Open

ALYSSA: Yeah.  And I mean, ultimately, this does end up setting up… Ultimately, this does end up... setting up—that, that sounds right, right?

ROBIN: Yeah. 

JESS B.: Yeah, I think so. 

ALYSSA: The more I say it, the worse it sounds.

Introduction

[Breakfast in Beauclair theme music by MojoFilter Media]

ALYSSA: Welcome to Breakfast in Beauclair, a global Witcher Podcast. My name is Alyssa from GoodMorhen, and I’ll be your host as you, I, and our international hanza accompany Geralt of Rivia and his destiny, Cirilla of Cintra, across The Continent.

[Welcome]

I think as some of you know, the majority of recordings for this season have been done over two weekends. Usually clocking in at 4-5 hours long. This recording with Jess and Robin was one of them. So, welcome to the first half of our discussion which will cover the plot of this episode and join us in two weeks for a deeper discussion on the themes and scenes that resonated with us most.

Last week was the launch of my new 8-part YouTube series “Around The Table: The Lore, Culture, and History Behind The Witcher”. Thank you so much to everyone who supported the first installment in the series. It was so much fun to do a little video flex and to create something that really felt like it was both by and for members of this community. Each video in the series will release the week after the matching podcast episode. Because “Four Marks” will be split into two episodes, the “Around The Table” video will release the Thursday after the second episode. In the meantime, catch the first video in the series on the Breakfast in Beauclair YouTube page.

[Patron Announcements]

Shout out to our current producer-level patrons: Luis of Kovir, The Owner of The Churlish Porpoise, Arix the Godling, Katie (The Redhead of Toussaint), Jacob B., Mahakam Elder Joe, Julie, Sylvia of Skellige, Jamison, Ayvo of Gulet, Bee Haven of the Edge of the World, Jacob Meeks, and Sebastian von Novigrad.

Episode 17 is the second of three episodes that I’m donating to the community with it’s bonus content. To access the free bonus content for this episode, head over to patreon.com/breakfastinbeauclair after Saturday, June 20th.

[Episode Details]

As for this episode, Robin from the Netherlands and returning guest, Jess B., join us to discuss the second episode of Netflix’s The Witcher, Episode 102 “Four Marks.” Here we discuss themes of romance and motherhood, take a 360 look at the complex relationship between humans and elves on the Continent, examine the construction of history through storytelling and perception, question the role of emotions, and then stick around as Jess and I explain an innuendo.

In our mid-episode news segment, “Tidings from Toussaint,” Lars from Witcherflix shares a number of updates from Lauren Hissrich, the showrunner of Netflix’s The Witcher.

Without further ado, let’s get to the discussion for The Witcher Episode 102, “Four Marks.”

Discussion

[Breakfast in Beauclair stinger by MojoFilter Media]

ALYSSA: Welcome to Breakfast in Beauclair. My name is Alyssa and joining us today are Robin from the Netherlands and, our returning guest, Jess from Episodes 6 and 7. Hi, guys!

ROBIN: Hello.

JESS: Hi!

ALYSSA: Jess, it's so lovely to have you back. You were with us for “The Last Wish” and “The Voice of Reason”. So, how are you? What's been up since then?

JESS: Oh, you know, just a global pandemic. Sorry to bring it down, but that, that leads into where I am in terms of reading. I've made it through The Last Wish and The Sword of Destiny. And I meant to finish the whole series, but, you know, I think I will get into the books again. Just, just waiting for, you know, the world to be a little bit brighter.

ALYSSA: Yes, I think that's fair. I mean, even if you haven't started the saga yet, we are talking about the television show today. How was this dive into the Witcher universe in a new medium?

JESS: Oh, I loved it. I finished the whole series in about a week. I wanted to take my time, because I knew I could easily binge this. It's just, ah, so beautiful to watch. I think we'll talk about that later, but I loved all the visuals and that's totally something that you don't get when you're reading the books, not the cinematic nature of these Netflix shows. So, it was a real treat.

ALYSSA: Yeah, that's really exciting. You also mentioned that you're currently reading a couple other kinds of books. And I know that both you and Robin are quite well-read. What books are you currently reading or have you finished recently that you would recommend to the hanza?

JESS: Ooh, okay. So, we're going to talk about Yen in this episode and like her cool little lady magic school. So, if you like that aspect of this episode, Lumberjanes is the comic for you. It's an all-ages comic. So, it's about all these ladies who are at a sleep-away camp over the summer. There's that aspect of kind of going to camp and having that female friendship, but it's also heavily influenced by fantasy and Sci-fi. So, sometimes, they’ll time travel. There's others where they battle out some yetis. They do, like, some roller derby contests and stuff. It’s like—

ALYSSA: Oh, my god.

JESS: —totally – yeah. I mean it's very light-hearted, but it's a lot of fantasy mixed into it. And it's, it's just so much fun. So, that's Lumberjanes by Shannon Watters. It's so good. What else have I been reading? Blackbird by Sam Humphries, that's also really good. It is another female-centric comic. It's about a girl who discovers magic in Los Angeles. So, it's this urban fantasy that's really good. That one's a little bit darker. What else? Oh, Lucy Knisley. She's a really great graphic memoir author. So, all of hers are based on her real-life, If you’re interested in travel, and food, and stuff, she has some really great memoirs out there.

ALYSSA: Fantastic. As you said, it does seem like a lot of your recommendations relate directly to some of the things that we'll be talking about today, which is really exciting. And then, Robin, so, you're new to the show. Would you be able to introduce yourself to our listeners?

ROBIN: Yeah, of course. I'm Robin. I'm 21 years old. I'm from the Netherlands. And I'm currently still studying history at the University of Utrecht. It's almost at the end of my third year. So, it's also the year I wrote my thesis – my bachelor's thesis about the way Dutch movies, about the Second World War between 1977 and 2015 treat female characters. Yeah. And I really loved writing that. It was – it was really fun. And I'm doing an internship also with a podcast. So, that's also a lot of fun.

ALYSSA: Oh, that's awesome. I'd love to hear a little bit more about, like, your thesis, what you learned by doing it, and then the conclusion that you came to by the end.

ROBIN: Yeah, I chose four Dutch movies that are about the Second World War. I came to the conclusion that there's a development that you follow from the second feminist wave up until now. That these movies that I picked actually kind of showed pretty well in some ways and then, in other ways, they didn't. So, I could really talk about the change that you see between the 1970s and current times in how movies treat women. That was very interesting to me, because, in the Second World War, there were still different ideas about the male and female roles, culturally. You know, if you make a movie about the Second World War, you kind of want to show a historical time. But then you also have an ideology that is from current times in it. Yeah, I love that. It was very interesting.

ALYSSA: The question that I always love to ask new guests is: how did you get into the Witcher?

ROBIN: Yeah, my brother, he bought the Witcher III game. I played through Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls Skyrim. And I really loved that game. And he said, “Well if you love that, you'll love the Witcher III.” And then I heard like, “Oh, there's going to be a Netflix show, and it's based on books.” So, I was like, “Oh, books? There are books? I'm gonna read the books.” So, I started reading the books. And, yeah, I'm currently still stranded at Baptism of Fire same as what Jess said, like, “Oh, there's so many books, and now we're in a pandemic.” So—

ALYSSA: I mean I'm really excited about the discussion that we're gonna have today just because both of you are just wickedly smart, and you're both very well read. So, I think that with both of your interests and the themes and the aspects of character development that we're going to see in this episode, Four Marks, I think it's going to be an absolutely fantastic discussion, and I'm so excited. 

JESS: Oh, thank you.

ALYSSA: Today, we'll be discussing “Four Marks”, the second episode in Netflix's first season of The Witcher. In this episode, we meet a new character, Yennefer, and experience her early abandonment and the trials that shaped her. We see an adaptation of Andrew Sapkowski’s short story, “The Edge of the World” from The Last Wish, in which Geralt and the bard, Jaskier, confront the effects of human expansion. In the present, Ciri finds a companion in a Cintrian refugee camp, which is quickly attacked by Nilfgaardian forces. In Yennefer’s storyline, after accidentally showing an aptitude for magic, a young hunchback girl, Yennefer, is sold by her father and taken against her will to Aretuza, the magical academy for girls. In the opening scene of Yennefer’s storyline, a young couple finds a hunchback girl in a barn and bullies her. The girl accidentally transports herself to a crypt, where a man, Istredd, sends her back home with a warning: “She'll be coming for you”. Istredd’s warning comes to pass. The girl is sold to a mysterious woman for four marks, less than half the price of her father's pigs. The girl is locked in the bedroom. And, heartbroken and angry, she attempts suicide.

ROBIN: I thought it was just super interesting that they introduced that theme of Yen's self-worth. And that she sees her face, and then she's like, “I'm only worth four marks to my stepfather.” Then she attempts suicide. Yeah, it's just really about her self-worth.

JESS: Yeah, that was pretty savage. I mean her whole introductory scene where she meets a couple people who start bullying her. I’m like, “What?”

ROBIN: Yeah.

JESS: What did she do to you? She's just picked a few flowers, and then they go ahead and try to traumatize her. That was pretty intense the way that they backed her up onto the floor, and they were attacking her. And then, to add insult to injury, her own family sold her for four marks, whereas they would sell the pigs for 10 marks. So, it's just like that's a terrible headspace to be in. Just based on the future episodes, she comes such a long way from this first episode. So, it was pretty remarkable watching it again after my first initial run of watching it and binging it. Kind of this is a really tough beginning for her, but she makes it.

ROBIN: Hmmm. Yes, she does.

ALYSSA: I definitely have to agree. I think this is a excellently done introduction to her character as well as to Tissaia de Vries. You know, it shows the origins of her character and creates a very strong contrast between where she is now and where she ends up. And Anya Chalotra is just fantastic in these early scenes. Her range throughout the entire series is absolutely remarkable. She's spoken about her character in this early stage where her characters roughly, like, 14 or so and how the prosthetics; the hunchback as well as a cheek insert affected her acting. And she always had to kind of look down, and she couldn't really meet anyone's eye. And it changed the way that she held herself. And I think that shows amazingly in these opening scenes.

JESS: Yeah, she was amazing to her. Love her.

ROBIN: It was really interesting how, throughout this episode, there are flowers connected to Yennefer and Yennefer’s storyline. And, like, first, we have that part with the daisy and the girl from the couple is like, “Oh, not a rose? Daisies, they're cheap.” And then she throws away the daisy, and Yen picks it up. And then, when she's with Istredd, it’s also with the flowers. The theme of flowers just starts here.

ALYSSA: Yeah, that's interesting how important it becomes to her throughout the course of the episode as she grows into her own powers.

ROBIN: Yennefer’s theme actually is introduced here. It starts quietly when she's sold to Tissaia. The first time is a little muffled. It’s like within the harmonies of other stuff going on in the music. But then, when she watches herself in the mirror and attempts suicide, that's when, like, you have a very sad oboe theme. That's her theme. And it comes back in later episodes. It starts here. And that's what I also really love, that development of that theme.

ALYSSA: That's something that the composer, Sonya Belousova, talked a lot about in her interactions with fans. They continually tried to build and change and adapt the three characters’ main themes and develop them over the course of the series and of individual episodes. It's really neat.

ROBIN: Yeah, I love it when composers do that. It's just awesome.

ALYSSA: The following morning, after her suicide attempt, the mysterious woman introduces herself as Tissaia de Vries, the rectors of Aretuza. Tissaia introduces the novices to the basics of magic built upon channeling chaos with balance and control. As the other novices succeed, the girl does not. She finds her way to the same crypt with the same man, Istredd. We hear her name for the first time when she introduces herself, Yennefer.

ROBIN: I just loved the Witcher universe that has a big mix and mishmash of European influences. And my brother once said that Novigrad was based on the game, at least, in Amsterdam. So, that was really interesting to me in the first place. And then, of course, you have the spy, Dijkstra in Dutch. Dijkstra as everyone says it, but it's Dijkstra in Dutch. And Tissaia’s name is a Dutch surname. It's everywhere in the Netherlands. Everyone is called De Vries. It means something with frozen.

ALYSSA: Huh.

ROBIN: So, that's also very interesting with Tissaia’s character right now, which is kind of cold. But, yeah, Tissaia’s surname is actually pronounced De Vries in Dutch.

JESS: That's really cool. Yeah, thanks for sharing. It's awesome.

ALYSSA: I love how like these little notes and cultural influences have found their way through the Witcher universe as well. And it's interesting, like, to see people from different countries pick up on different things throughout the books as well as throughout these Netflix episodes. It makes it a very interesting relationship between the author and the audience. And it makes the experience, I think, feel very personal, which is neat.

ROBIN: Yeah, you really feel like, “Wow, that's something from my culture. That's something from my country. How cool.” And then you really feel included or something in a book.

JESS: Oh, that's so nice.

ALYSSA: Yeah, I think that's really cool that you brought that up. It really goes back to, like, what you're saying that it's cool, that it's kind of like this Pan-European influence story.

ROBIN: Yeah, it’s such a European story.

JESS: And, Alyssa, I mean, at the top of every show, you call it a global Witcher podcast. I'm glad that we have guests from all over the world to give that insight.

ALYSSA: I know. That's my favorite thing about the show. It does feel like a global community. I think Breakfast in Beauclair is one of the only shows if not the only show about the Witcher universe that does have guests. And the fact that they are from all over the world is just, “Haaa! It's my favorite part.” And I get so excited and so passionate talking about that.

JESS: Awww.

ROBIN: Yeah, but this is definitely something you should be proud of. Because I wouldn't even have thought that you would do all of this on your own. But you're doing all of this on your own. And it's, like, the production value is actually so good. And, now that I've been working on a podcast myself, I know how freakin’ difficult it is. So, wow, mad, mad respect.

ALYSSA: Oh, thanks. So, the interesting thing about these scenes is that we're being introduced to the concept of magic in much more detail than we did in the very first episode where we just met Stregobor. Here, we're learning a lot more about the physics of magic, the laws of it, where it comes from, and this will be the foundation of knowledge that we built upon throughout the rest of the season as well.

ROBIN: Well, Yennefer says, “You should have let me die. At least, I have control over that.” And Tissaia responds with, “You weren't taking control. You were losing it.” You can control chaos. And I think that she kind of ties it to emotions. And Yennefer uses magic in a very emotional way.

JESS: Yeah, I thought it was interesting that she was able to essentially teleport out of a terrible situation at the top of the episode. And then, when it comes to levitating a rock, she couldn’t do it. I definitely think the distress that she was under early in the episode helped her do that magic of transporting to another place. It's definitely true, I think, that that emotion and that chaos, you have to draw upon it. And she's still a novice here. But, eventually, she'll learn to control that chaos and really do all that magic of her own will rather than it kind of like being an accident or out of anger.

ROBIN: Yeah. And I really think it's to do with Yennefer's growing up and learning how to control herself as well as a person.

ALYSSA: Yeah, this entire episode or Yennefer's arc in this entire episode takes place over the course of a couple months. So, it's very interesting to see how much your character develops in those first few months at Aretuza and, as you said, Jess, where that kind of control takes her really. We'll see specific emotional beats throughout the episode where she does use magic. And, at first, a lot of those beats are points of, as you said, distress, self-destruction, and a feeling of worthlessness. As we continue through the episode, she starts to perform magic and feelings of worth and feelings of being loved, which I think is very powerful as we start to establish her character arc.

ROBIN: Yeah. And I think maybe magic is even like a defense mechanism for her almost, and that she doesn't feel worthy of anything. She has very little self-worth. She kind of has to unlearn to use magic only when she's very emotional when she’s said. And she has to kind of learn what you, like, say when she feels loved.

ALYSSA: Aside from learning more about magic, we also start to establish a relationship between Yennefer and Tissaia. Again, this relationship is not something that we'll see at the early stages of in the books. And it's so cool to see it here.

ROBIN: Yes. I was kind of worried about this relationship because no one in her life generally treats her like a human being as you see it. Like, Tissaia is actually not nice to her. And Istredd actually treats her very kindly. And that's why she's probably drawn to him in the first instance.

JESS: Yeah, that chemistry between them was off the charts as soon as they met really. I think that has to do I think with actors being good actors and then kind of creating that chemistry. But, also, as you said, he is really the first person that we've seen to ever be nice to Yennefer. So, obviously, I think they’re gonna catch feelings. Yen really responds to him. And I think Istredd responds back. Later on the episode, you kind of see what his motivations might be. But I definitely think there is a genuine interest in both parts.

ALYSSA: Yeah, absolutely. And that is a perfect segue into the following scene. Yennefer fails at thought transference trial, the most recent in a string of failures over a few weeks. Tissaia exposes her greatest fear, “Even if you're a beauty, still no one would love you.” Yennefer confides in Istredd, and she successfully experienced thought transference with him.

ROBIN: Yeah, again, this is like, again, about Yen’s self-worth.

ALYSSA: Yeah, I was watching the episode back this morning before recording, and I actually just had to stop the episode and sit in my feels while watching the scene between Istredd and Yennefer.

ROBIN: Hmm.

ALYSSA: You know, as we'll see over the course of the season, we'll see maternal relationships like the one between Tissaia and Yennefer. We’ll see romantic relationships like the budding one here between Istredd and Yennefer. And I do have some thoughts on the way that these relationships successfully develop in certain places and are a little bit less successful in other storylines. But I think this specific moment and the specific emotional beat is really, really powerful between Istredd and Yennefer. It does a really good job of showing the gradual growth of their relationship and the importance that they have to each other and the mutual interest as you said, Jess. 

JESS: Yeah, like I was saying, the chemistry was through the roof in this scene. I mean, yeah, I think really, when she feels like she's being loved and that she feels that self-worth kind of increased, she's able to do that bit of magic so easily. It really goes back to the lesson that she had in that classroom that you need to control the chaos, but the chaos has to be there to begin with – that emotion. They're obviously, like, very into each other. And she's feeling all these emotions. She's finally able to do something that she couldn't do in a classroom, where she doesn't feel safe or she doesn't feel like she's worth anything.

ALYSSA: Yeah, absolutely. I just think this scene is so beautiful. And the simple act of him anticipating her needs just to, like, share the taste of warm bread, the sight of moon jellyfish.

JESS: Oh, right. 

ALYSSA: It's very vulnerable I think for both of them, but it feels very sincere. And, like, I guess, we'll see throughout the episode, the depth or shallowness of that sincerity.

JESS: Hmm.

ALYSSA: But, you know, at the moment, it does feel very genuine. And I don't know. I just found the scene really sweet. Yeah.

JESS: It was really sweet. Yeah. I forgot. This was that scene where she said something like, “Oh, you – you're showing me things that you love.” And he says something like, “No, I'm showing you things that I thought you would love.” So, it's like, “Ooh, he's working – working his magic on her—

ALYSSA: Yeah.

JESS: —literally and figuratively.

ROBIN: Being a charmer.

JESS: Exactly. So, when he said that line – that kind of smooth line, I definitely think he's working his magic intentionally. But there's obviously some chemistry there. So, that's, that's just a fun thing about watching these episodes.

ROBIN: Yeah, like you said, the chemistry is really there. And there's no Hans from Frozen moment. You know what I mean?

JESS: Yeah.

ALYSSA: Yeah. And we'll be able to see, I think, how acutely this affects them in the following episode, Episode 3, Betrayer Moon, as well as Episode 7, Before a Fall. So, we'll get to see their relationship over the course of the season. Oh, it's fascinating. It's very juicy.

JESS: Yeah.

ALYSSA: During a storm, Yennefer and the novices are woken for a lightning in a bottle trial in Tor Lara, the Tower of the Gull. Yennefer is hit with a lightning bolt and angrily channels the energy back at Tissaia and another novice. In the aftermath, Tissaia confronts Yennefer. This is a very emotionally charged scene as we've seen throughout the entire episode. And, as we've spoken about at length, Yennefer is constantly feeling like she's failing in this school environment and this kind of feels like the climax of that for her.

ROBIN: It also doesn't help that she still calls her Piglet. And we've had, like, this buildup of Yen feeling like a failure and not doing well, and then Tissaia still calls her Piglet with emphasis in the scene. Well, Tissaia is awful to everyone in the scene though, except to Sabrina, because Sabrina is doing so well. Yennefer gets, like, so angry, because she's done. She's so, so done. And then, after, you have that conversation. Tissaia says like, “Okay, Sabrina is one of those mages who really ignores their emotions. And she says, like, “Oh, there mages like us who are consumed by emotions.” This moment of like us is maybe that moment that you really start to flip that relationship between Tissaia, because she kind of feels responsible for her. She sees herself in her. And she wants to teach her how to prevent those mistakes because she sees that she's also a very emotional person. And she uses magic emotionally. And that's very much that motherly figure. And, before, she gave her a lot of tough love. But, now, you see maybe that flipped around a little.

JESS: Yeah, this part was interesting, because she is kind of reprimanding her for losing her cool. But, at the same time, I think she was a little bit impressed. Like, “Oh, she is finally able to like do something.” Rather than just being a sorrowful little Piglet, she actually stood up for herself. So, I think, on the outside, she definitely was scolding her saying, “Hey, I'm responsible for you. If you ascend and you mess up, and that's gonna be my fault.” She kind of has to cover her bases there and like say, “Hey, that's not how we do it.” Like you said, it is like a flip of a switch, where she kind of starts respecting her a little bit. Though she's not controlling the chaos, the Chaos is in her and she kind of – it’s, like, game recognize game. Like, she said that she – you know, she sees herself in her. So, she's, like, that respect is starting to be earned.

ALYSSA: Yeah, I mean I'd love to take a moment to just read out the actual exchange between Yennefer and Tissaia, because I think it's really powerful. And I do really enjoy the writing here. Tissaia says, “There are mages like Sabrina who ignore their emotions. And then there are mages like us, who are consumed by them.” And Yennefer asks like, “Us?” They have that exchange later on. Tissaia says, “If I send you to advise a king and your precious little feelings get hurt when he won't listen and you submit to chaos, he dies. His people turn on us. Whose fault would that be?” Yennefer answers, “Mine.” And Tissaia cuts her off saying, “No, mine, for letting you ascend.” As essentially a gatekeeper into this society and into magical responsibility, it seems like Tissaia sees it as an obligation to herself to not let Yennefer get out of control. And I, I think as you said Jess, like a game recognize game. But I think she can see the raw power that Yennefer has. It’s just a matter of getting her to actually direct it to something constructive and skills rather than just raw chaos or energy.

JESS: Absolutely. Yeah.

ROBIN: I also like what you said about gatekeeper, but I really do feel that Tissaia clearly singles her out. And I think that's, because, on the one hand, indeed, that she feels like a gatekeeper as her profession. But I also think she kind of feels like an emotional responsibility or something.

JESS: Oh, yeah, I think Tissaia can definitely see that there – there's a storm brewing in Yennefer, because, if you look at all the other girls, they're all very prim and proper. And, like she said, there are people who just don't have that emotion. But, you, Yennefer, you come from such humble origins, a very terrible backstory actually, and physical deformities that make her an outcast in society. Like, you, of all people, should have this chaos, this emotion in you to power your magic, but you're not using it. So, I think she's trying to get something out of her, because, if anyone has inner turmoil out of this whole class of girls, it's gotta be you, Yen. So, just do it.

ALYSSA: It's interesting that you say that the girls in the academy are all coming across as prim and proper, which I do think is true for the adaptation. We could talk about comparisons to the books later, but that's definitely not the case in the books.

JESS: Hmm. Interesting.

ALYSSA: Yeah, it's really interesting that, in this case, Yennefer is decidedly out of place. This is actually only something that I'm thinking about now that it was brought up. But I think, when we get to the comparisons to the books and the role of the sorceresses and their origins, yeah, we can definitely talk about the difference between that in the books and the adaptation.

“WEDNESDAY NIGHT ALYSSA”: Hey, it’s “Wednesday Night Alyssa”. Because we recorded this over two weekends, I completely forgot I said this and we never came back to it in the second half of the episode. The reason I thought it was interesting that the other novices all seemed prim and proper, is because in the original source material, we learn that the only girls who become sorceresses are ones who are particularly undesirable, for one reason or another. The excerpt from “The Last Wish” short story, from the compilation of the same name reads:

[Reading] “Each to their own taste but, in actual fact, not many would describe sorceresses as good-looking. Indeed, all of them came from social circles where the only fate for daughters would be marriage. Who would have thought of condemning their daughter to years of tedious studies and the tortures of somatic mutations if she could be given away in marriage and advantageously allied? Who wished to have a sorceress in their family? […] So only the daughters with no chance of finding a husband became sorceresses.”

“WEDNESDAY NIGHT ALYSSA”: This was just something I remembered as we were chatting. Of course, we don’t dive too deeply into the background of the other mages, but I’d love to hear their stories and see the effect of the kingdoms and cultures they’re inhabiting in future seasons. Okay, back to the episode.

ALYSSA: I think her trauma and her tragedy really stands out comparatively to the other novices. Something that I also noticed – again, this might just be like a small detail – is that, when Tissaia, like, removes Yennefer's bandages, we see that she has two scars on her right wrist, which got me thinking to the next episode, Episode 3, Betrayer Moon. Without going into any spoilers episode details, we do see that she also has two marks on the inside of her left wrist. So, she ends up having a total of four scars. And I just wondered like—

ROBIN: Four marks, aaah.

ALYSSA: Yes, those four marks. Those four scars, also, related back to the episode.

ROBIN: Oh, no.

ALYSSA: So, that, that was just something that I thought of when I was watching the episode again this morning. That double meaning of four marks for what she was paid, but also the four marks from her suicides --

ROBIN: Oof.

ALYSSA: —which makes the scene I think incredibly vivid and very painful both physically and emotionally. Yeah. It's just a very small detail. And, again, I don't know if that was intentional on production’s part, but I thought that it was done—

JESS: Oh, I bet it was.

ALYSSA: Yeah.

ROBIN: Even if it was or was it, like, it goes right into feels. Wooh.

ALYSSA: In the next scene, Yennefer fears for her relationship with Istredd. As he consoles her, Yennefer reveals her real father was a half elf killed in the great cleansing. She blames her elven heritage for her spine and her self-worth. This is a really interesting scene, because we start to establish some of the themes that become very important throughout the episode. We hear about elves. We do know that there's issues between humans and nonhumans and elves and humans specifically on the Continent. And we'll see this in all three storylines for Yennefer, Geralt, and Ciri throughout the episode. In Yennefer’s storyline specifically, this comes to a head here. She tells Istredd that her father was a half-elf. She mentions the great cleansing, which ends up being a massacre of elven lives. And she said she was cursed. “I'm cursed with the crooked spine,” which I thought was an interesting use of language there.

JESS: Umm. Was this the scene where you see all the bones and stuff?

ALYSSA: Yeah, it's a little funny.

JESS: Yeah, this was interesting seeing all the bones. So, Istredd shows Yen all these bones that are arranged in quite an architectural way. And he said, “Aretuza is literally built on the bones of these elves. This is not ours. This actually belongs to the elves. And they created this amazing structure. And there's all this magic that runs through it.” So, it's such a contrast of seeing how powerful they were to make these amazing architectural structures full of magic. They're obviously very powerful. And then, despite how powerful they are, they were kind of ousted and in this kind of genocidal way, unfortunately. So, you see where they were in the past. Almost like the ancient Egyptians creating these amazing pyramids, and then, today, they're just outcasts in society. This is a good seed to kind of illustrate that.

ALYSSA: Yeah, absolutely. It leads into, as I said, one of the important themes of the episode. Istredd here says explicitly to Yennefer how the human learned magic from elves and then slaughtered them all, because they wanted to be seen as the originators of magic on the Continent.

JESS: Rude.

ALYSSA: Yeah, I know. Istredd says, “Rewriting history with the stories we tell, the songs we sing about our own triumphs, it's what we do,” implying that it's a very human thing to do. That humans are controlling the greater narrative of history, because, as we see, they were the victors. Ultimately, this ends up being a very strong theme for the episode. And we'll get to it later when we discuss the theme song for the episode that has since taken off and become number one on Billboard, which is wild. We'll get into that more, but I just wanted to point out that this is like one of the explicit times where we see this idea. So, this is kind of a funny scene. Like, at least, there's parts of it that are a little comic. Istredd asks who the bones are of, and Yennefer is just like, “Dead people?” That was a really funny beat. Istredd just looks at her, like, kind of incredulously and then, like, has to explain, “No, they’re elves.” Umm. But it's a bit funny.

JESS: He's just like, “Oh, child, let me tell you something.”

ALYSSA: It's—

ROBIN: Mhmm.

ALYSSA: —it's the fun – like, if you watch that scene again, it's just a really funny look. Yeah. So, he tells her about the history of the elves on the Continent. I think, at this point, Yennefer admits that she's half elf. I forget what exactly happens in that dialogue. But then she does say, like, “My worst fear is true. I'm still not enough even for you.” And he talks her back down. He, like, gives her the flower. He mentions that flowers only grow where elven blood was spilled. And then he tries to get her to use a portal, because they want to, like, keep in contact if she were to be expelled. That's when she does the magic.

ROBIN: Why does magic happen from this, this flower? What is it? Because you see, Istredd, in the first scene that he's in, he also, like, takes a bite of the flower, and then he opens the portal back up. Is that like the same as within that scene where the novices draw magic from the flower? Because I was very confused because they don't really explain that.

ALYSSA: Yeah, the purpose of the flower, in the context of magic as a whole, we learned in the scene where the novices are trying to levitate the rocks that they can be used as kind of like a life energy in exchange for performing magic. I guess it seems like Istredd keeps all these little flowers on him so he can perform little bits of magic. I don't know if it's true or not. This is just a theory. Yennefer says that she has elven blood, which becomes an important plot point in the next episode. And then we do learn that that specific flower that Istredd gives her in that moment only grows where elven blood is spilled. He was very impressed that she could open this portal on her first try. And I wonder if it was because, like, she has elven blood and that flower is directly related to elven blood. So, I wonder if it was, like, exponential through her. But that's just like a thought. I could be looking into it too deeply.

JESS: Yeah, I didn't think about that. But I think – I mean that sounds correct. I mean she's going to this place occasionally throughout the episode. And it's where she's able to do magic the best. So, yeah, I do wonder if there's a correlation between the two. It's kind of like she's starting to find her home and a place where she belongs. Like, she doesn't even know it. But it’s kind of like her ancestral, ancestral home maybe you could say. Yeah.

ALYSSA: Yeah. After she does that magic, Yennefer tries to run away. I think they have a moment. And then they eventually kiss. I think they had kind of shown vulnerability move toward intimacy. And I think this is the first physical realization of that attraction.

ROBIN: Yep. Music-wise, it's just very interesting that you have Yennefer’s theme again, but it now ends on a major chord. So, it sounds happier because she kisses. And I was like, “Oh, if the theme is, like, tied up to her person and her emotions, then, you know, making the last end chord major chord is actually very smart.” So—

ALYSSA: That’s really beautiful.

ROBIN: Yeah, I guess now she’s just happy.

ALYSSA: Yeah. In the next scene, Yennefer gives Tissaia the flower Istredd gave her as proof of her ability to spy. Satisfied with her ability to keep her emotions in check, Tissaia calls Yennefer by her name for the first time. Meanwhile, Istredd tells Stregobor that Yennefer is quarter elf.

ROBIN: Again, with the flowers. I don't understand it. Why?

ALYSSA: Yeah, but it's a very, like, tangible, very fragile item. I wonder if it's also like the continued representation of purity.

ROBIN: Maybe it's like the parallel with the thing that Tissaia says. “Sometimes, the best thing a flower can do for us is die.” What Istredd also does is he takes a bite of a flower so he has magic to channel it. And that's maybe ties into it and what we will see in the last scene, I think.

ALYSSA: Yeah, that definitely ties into what we'll see in the last scene. Again, I could be reaching. I wonder if, like, the flower also just ends up representing the relationship between the two of them. Every single scene that we see them in, they're exchanging these flowers, usually, I think, as we'll see in episodes 3 and 7. I don't know. It could be, like, the best thing for the relationship to do was for it to die. I don’t know.

ROBIN: Yeah. No. Yeah.

ALYSSA: Again, this is – I'm just spitballing. And I could just be reaching, like, down a rabbit hole that has no bottom. But—

ROBIN: Yeah, maybe. But the flowers are also generally tied to magic. So, maybe not only to Istredd and Yen.

JESS: When you said, sometimes, the best thing a flower can do for us is die and that's kind of like their relationship. It’s just like, “Ugh.” Yeah. I feel like that is kind of true. I mean – but I guess we'll see that a little bit more in the future. It's not the same flower, is it though? It's like different flowers have different purposes and things. So, so, this one was meant to kind of show her allegiance. What did Tissaia say? She just said, “I want you to get that from, from him, because I wanted to just see that you could.” So --

ALYSSA: Yeah, it was – it was a bit funny the way that that sentence was worded, because she just says, “I wanted to see that you could get it from the boy.” And I’m like, the first time I heard that, I think, I had to think about like, like romantically get it or like get the flower. Like I think he --

JESS: Yeah, when you said it, I didn't notice that the first time I watched it. When you just said it now, I just – it sounds like an innuendo. Like, “Hey, get it.”

ROBIN: Oh, is that – is that an innuendo in English?

ALYSSA: Yeah.

ROBIN: Ooh.

ALYSSA: Yeah. Like, if you're, let's say, talking about a person that’s, let's say, across the room at like a club or something, you can say like, “Oh, he can get it.” Like, he can get—

ROBIN: Right.

ALYSSA: —me. He can have sex with me.

ROBIN: Oh.

ALYSSA: Yeah. So—

ROBIN: Oh, I get.

ALYSSA: Yeah, I get it. Yeah. So, the first time that I heard it, I had like a slight, like, “Wait. What?” But it was a bit awkward to listen to. We also get a very brief ominous scene between Istredd and Stregobor as we'll see. So, we met Stregobor in the first episode, The End’s Beginning. He was one of the key players in the storyline with Renfri and Geralt. And it turns out he's the rector of Ban Ard, the magical school for boys. And, ooh, like, the music gets really creepy. Stregobor, like, comes out from the shadows and starts to, like, interrogate Istredd saying, like, “You've been working with her for months, and you haven't found anything?” And then Istredd spits out that she's half-elf. And then the music gets really ominous. We see the setup here. We'll ultimately not going to see the outcome of it until the next episode. But it kind of leaves us with this feeling of dread.

JESS: Yeah, when I saw that part, I was like “Nooo! How could you?” At that point, it’s a surprise that he's kind of been a mole, trying to get information on her. I was like, “Oh, no, Istredd! How could you?” But, at the same time, I guess, Yen was doing the same thing, right? Maybe she didn't realize that that's what Tissaia was asking her to do. But I think, eventually, you kind of see like, “Oh, they're kind of like secret agents.”

ROBIN: But, at the same time, like, I don't think it's really a Hans from Frozen moment, because he seems kind of reluctant that he tells this to Stregobor. He's not like, “Oh, I have just told her dirty little secrets. Wahaha.” That's, that’s not really – that's not really it. So, yeah.

JESS: Yeah, he didn't want to do it. But it seemed like he was pressed to do it. And he was just like, “Okay, fine. Here it is.” When he said, “You’ve been working on her for months,” so, maybe he was kind of protecting her a little bit because he has a soft spot for her. So, he wasn't really willingly giving up information until he was confronted.

ALYSSA: Yeah. And, as we'll see, if it wasn't a big deal that Yennefer was quarter elf, Istredd wouldn't have mentioned it. But, as we'll see on this theme throughout the episode, there is a divide between humans and nonhumans, which is why her quarter elven blood ends up being an issue as we'll see in the following episodes and why Istredd gives it to Stregobor as like a key piece of information here. It doubles down on some of the other elements that we'll see in Geralt’s and Ciri’s storylines about that relationship between humans and elves. Uuugh! It's like, ugh, it's daunting. I think it's like a very – it's very stressful part of the episode. And then it's so quick.

ROBIN: Yeah, you're – you're, like, left with, “Wait, what's going on?”

ALYSSA: Yeah. And I guess the last moments that we see in Yennefer’s storyline this episode, I think, we get an additional, like, “What the fuck moment?”—

ROBIN: Yeah.

ALYSSA: —after the scene with Istredd.

ROBIN: Also, I think maybe important, of course, for, like, her self-worth is also that Tissaia, like, calls Yennefer by her name for the first time. And that really the flip of the previous scene between them kind of comes to fruition. You really see that she kind of respects her now. So, that's, I think, very important in that relationship between Tissaia and Yennefer.

ALYSSA: Mhmm. As you said, this is definitely the first time Yennefer is starting to feel respected by Tissaia and not looked down upon or beaten up. She proved herself with this act. This is where we see kind of the growth of her relationship with Tissaia happen. And, and I guess – and what happens next? I'll just leave with that.

ROBIN: Yeah. Yeah.

ALYSSA: Yennefer, at the end of her previous scene with Tissaia, asked, “I did this for you. Does this mean I get to ascend?” Tissaia tells her, “Wait for the knock.” In the next scene, Yennefer waits for the knock on her door as instructed. Tissaia passes without knocking on her door. And Yennefer sneaks out anyway. She witnesses Tissaia turning the weaker novices into eels, where they'll be used to channel chaos for Aretuza. We learn that these novices’ control has been taken away, but they're still conduits of magic. They're essentially batteries for the school. This is where we see this sentence repeated. Sometimes, the best thing a flower can do for us is to die. In this specific context, we're talking about those weak novices that are unable to, ultimately, ascend.

ROBIN: There are people who eventually cannot make it. And, by turning them into eels, they still can do something for the school and for the mages. And she says it mournfully. So, she, she kind of feels sad that this is how it goes. But that's what I think.

JESS: Yeah, I think this kind of brings home that idea of chaos being important for magic. Sure, like, they have magic. But I would rather have someone like you being ascended, rather than these people who are kind of just like – I don't know – just like a Mayo sandwich. Sorry. That's not like a very descriptive. I mean, yeah, they have powers, but do they have that necessary chaos in them? I think it's easier for you to kind of rein in your chaos rather than having to produce that emotion if you don't have it at all. So, I think that's kind of the hanging statement of how the emotional part of you is so important for magic.

ROBIN: Yes. Isn't it such a powerful message to send? Your emotions, you know, they can be volatile. But they aren't bad necessarily, because they can also be turned to something useful. And, in this case, like, in a fantasy setting, they, they help Yennefer do magic. So, that's really cool. I think something that we see from let's say examples in meditation or examples in stoicism as a philosophy as well. It's important, I think, to be able to articulate and to understand your relationship to your own emotions and how to distance yourself from the fleeting nature of your emotions as well, which I think ends up being part of the importance here. Like, as you guys said, it's okay to have the emotions that you have. It's valid to experience and to feel the things that you feel. But it's a matter of understanding how you're relating to them, umm, as a way of kind of keeping them in check, not necessarily to act on all of them as we see one Yennefer unleashes that lightning and almost kills another novice. So, as you said, it's not that the emotions themselves are bad. It's just how she acts on them.

ROBIN: And, also, like, in light of our discussion about women and female characters later, like, what is said about the female and male roles and how gender is usually ascribed. That women are emotional and, therefore, irrational, you know. But emotions can be good too. And they're – they're volatile, but they can also be useful. For female characters, it’s also very important.

ALYSSA: Mhmm. They're not mutually exclusive either. It's not that you have emotions or you have logic. They don't rule each other out, which I think is, again, like, an important part of that balance and control that Tissaia talks about when it comes to magic. When we look at Yennefer’s storyline as a whole, there's a lot for us to, I think, learn. And this is an entirely new part of the continent that we're discovering after Episode 1. In Episode 1, we saw the Cintrian Royal Court. We saw Geralt’s experience in Blaviken. Now, we're really getting to the magical aspect of the worlds and of the lore. We're learning while Yennefer is learning, which makes it a really interesting experience. And we'll be able to grow with her knowledge throughout the series as well, but it does builds a good foundation for us as an audience here.

ROBIN: Yennefer’s theme of self-worth goes, like, all the way into Episode 8. All the awful things that were said to her kind of returned to her also. Not to spoil stuff, but the fire scene is pretty pivotal there. So, like, the feeling of worth or self-worth is very important to Yennefer. And it is really strongly introduced here. And that relationship between Tissaia and Yen also gets a closing in that last episode. So, you see starting this off here as well.

ALYSSA: Before we jump into Geralt and Ciri’s storylines, we’re going to hand it over to Lars from WitcherFlix for recent news on the Netflix show. When we come back, Robin, Jess, and I will continue our discussion of “Four Marks.”

“Tidings from Toussaint”

[“Tidings from Toussaint” theme music by Bettina Campomanes]

LARS FROM WITCHERFLIX: Hey, it's Lars from WitcherFlix and this is "Tidings from Toussaint". Welcome back everybody. During the last two weeks we had several insights into the writing process of The Witcher on Netflix. Let’s dive right into it.

On Twitter, showrunner Lauren Hissrich discussed the writing process for season 1 and what makes a good adaptation. She said: “When writing an adaptation, are the best writers always the ones most familiar with the world? Yes. And equally importantly, no. Let me back up. When you write an adaptation, you have to be familiar with the original work. Yes. Of course. The writers and staff on The Witcher had to read all of the books, and had to appreciate/enjoy the genre. But I specifically didn’t seek out ten Sapkowski scholars. Instead, I found several writers who were intimately familiar with the characters and themes and politics of the Continent. Some grew up with these stories and provided rich detail and insight into not just the books, but the history behind them.”

In even more tweets Lauren added: “It was equally important to have writers in the room who were able to question the “givens” in the books. Who could say, “Why do people hate the elves so much?” or “Wait, I still don’t understand Ciri’s bloodline. How do we examine it in a clearer way for the tv audience? In simplest form, we need writers fighting for the spirit of the books, and the intention of the author. And also writers who know that novels can’t be a 1:1 adaptation to tv, because characters can’t speak for hours on end without interruption (lookin at you Geralt and Iola.) We need writers who are close, but not too close. Who love the world, but aren’t afraid to question it. Who are fans, but are willing to step back and open their minds, in order to bring their beloved world to our real (big) one. I hope we did that."

In an interview with TheWrap.com, talked about the timelines of season 1 and 2, new witchers and how the pandemic affects filming. About the timeline in season 1 she said: “Obviously, it was one of the most controversial parts of Season 1 and I didn’t expect it to be as controversial as it was. But it’s something I still stand behind, in terms of storytelling. Hissrich said, adding that the 'goal was to get to know each of these characters individually, and the only way to do that was to separate their timelines.”

Compared to the timeline of season 2 she added: “What’s great though is they have intersected now. So what we’ll see in Season 2 is that all of our characters are existing on the same timeline. What that allows us to do storywise though is to play with time in slightly different ways. We get to do flashbacks, we get to do flash-forwards, we get to actually integrate time in a completely different way that we weren’t able to do in Season 1. […] So I think it will be a lot easier for the audience to follow and understand, especially a new audience coming in. But there are still going to be some fun challenges with time.”

In the interview with TheWrap.com, she also revealed her favorite new characters we can expect in the new season: “Probably my favorite additions for Season 2 are the new witchers. Really, in Season 1, we got to know Geralt and he’s our prime example of a witcher. And then there is one other witcher, Remus, who we meet in Episode 103, who quickly dies (laughs). So it was, for us really, about getting Geralt back to his roots and sort of learning where he came from and what his story is and what his sense of family is.”

Lauren also talked about how the pandemic affected the filming: “We were shooting in the U.K. and were about six weeks into our season when we shut down”, Lauren explains. “We were literally in the middle of a big sequence we had been preparing for months. But we have a very international crew and it wasn’t just about the health of our crew and our cast, but also getting them back home to their families. So that was at the forefront for us.”

Thanks to Production Weekly, a US and UK production database, we finally know more about when the production will continue. According to this database the exact date when the cameras are planned to start rolling again for The Witcher Season 2 is August 3rd, 2020. Of course, safety will always have to be first, but the filming does not feel so far off anymore.

Anyway guys, that's it for me for today. I hope you all stay safe and well. We'll talk again in the next episode of Breakfast in Beauclair. Until then, thanks again for listening and good luck on the path!

[“Tidings from Toussaint” theme music by Bettina Campomanes]

ALYSSA: Hey everyone! Welcome back from the break. I’m here with Robin and Jess discussing “Four Marks” from Season 1 of Netflix’s The Witcher. When we left off, we had finished our discussion of Yennefer’s opening storyline and now it’s time to take a look at Geralt and Ciri’s.

ALYSSA: Throughout Yennefer’s storyline, we do also experience part of Geralt’s and Ciri’s. In the Witcher storyline, Geralt and Jaskier’s search for the devil brings them face to face with the struggling elves at The Edge of the World. In the opening scenes, in Posada, Geralt and Jaskier meet for the first time. Geralt gets a contract for a “devil.” And the pair head on the road. So, this is their meet cute essentially.

JESS: It is – oh, my gosh.

ROBIN: Yeah.

JESS: I love this scene.

ALYSSA: And there's a couple of funny things that happen. Like, we are brought into a tavern by Jaskier singing. He gets booed. He stuffs his pants with bread. And then he meets Geralt, who is very just generally unfriendly and just really wants to mind his own business. As Geralt’s leaving, Jaskier shouts out that he's the Witcher. And that's when some of the residents of Posada asked him for his help.

ROBIN: Yeah, I mean you just got to love Joey Batey as, as Jaskier, right? He's so funny. I just love this. And, Jess, I love that you posted the meme, because I couldn't find it. Because I said – like, in our notes, I said, “Do you guys know that meme from Taron Egerton dressed up as Elton John together with Richard Madden in a car? Because that's what, I think, Geralt and Jaskier just are right now in personality.

JESS: Yeah, it's perfect. Umm, the image is pretty much Taron, who's playing Elton John. He's just in like a hot pink, like, outfit. And there's all these, like, feathers. And he's, like, got these crazy glasses on.

ROBIN: The feathers are almost poking out Richard’s eyes.

ALYSSA: Yeah.

JESS: Yeah. And Richard is just all in black just, like, looking at the feathers. He’s just like, “Can you shoo that away off my shoulder, please?”

ROBIN: Yeah. And that, that’s Geralt and Jaskier in the scene.

JESS: Yeah, on the road.

ALYSSA: I'll definitely have to link the picture in the show notes. I believe it's a YouTube video from Carpool Karaoke. It's pretty funny. We're staring at it in the document. And it’s so silly. I'll definitely attach the link to the video.

JESS: I just love this meet-cute, because it's so evident that Jaskier is just this, this peppy guy. He's, he’s singing. And then he's like, “Oh, hey, you, what do you think about what I just said? Everyone else seems to have an opinion. Tell me what you think.” He kind of like plays it off a little bit and, like, there's just, like, that stoic bass contrasted with just, “Let's be friends.”

ALYSSA: That's the funny thing. It’s that Geralt is almost chosen.

ROBIN: Yeah.

ALYSSA: It's like trying to befriend a cat.

JESS: Yes.

ALYSSA: It's like being chosen by a pet.

JESS: Yes.

ALYSSA: And it's the best feeling when you are. But Geralt doesn't seem to think so.

ROBIN: But Geralt is, like, a guy. He's got white hair. He's in full armor. He's got two swords. Like, wearing that, how would he never not stand out, you know?

ALYSSA: Yeah. And we'll see this relationship between Jaskier and Geralt develop throughout the rest of the series as well. Again, like a very small detail, but I ranted about it in my Instagram stories and on Twitter.

JESS: Yeah, I saw that.

ALYSSA: It’s that, in the scene, Nettly, who's from Posada and asked Geralt to hunt this devil for them, he offers Geralt 100 coin. And Geralt thinks about it for a second, and then he says, “150.” And Nettley takes out a purse of presumably exactly 150, and then hands it to Geralt. And I was just like, “Did he get shortchanged here? If he was the one that put out the first number, would he have gotten a better deal?”

JESS: Right.

ALYSSA: Because Nettley, apparently, already accounted for the fact that he would be haggled. And he had more than he was expecting to give. So, I was just like, “Hmm.”

JESS: Yeah, I thought that was so funny when you pointed that out on social media, Oh, he just happened to have a sack of money and in the exact amount that Geralt kind of asked for. So, it's like he didn't even, like, count the money or anything. He’s like, “Yeah, I know. I have 150 in here.” He just tossed it.

ALYSSA: Well, because I think, at the time, we're handling races at our company, talking to new candidates that are interviewing for us. So, when that realization first came to mind, it's kind of the argument about when you're interviewing for a job or you've only been given an offer, who should be the first person to set out the initial number? Is it you as an interviewee? Is it the company? And there's supposedly pros and cons to both, but it's like a really funny argument that had, like, been in my mind that, when I watched this episode again a couple weeks ago, I was like, “Hmm. I hope Geralt is getting paid fairly.” I guess we'll circle back around to that theme in song by the end of the episode. As they’re on the road, Jaskier just tells the audience really about the history of Dol Blathanna, the value of the flowers.

ROBIN: Yeah. And what Jaskier really does is just set up, “Oh, elves and their golden palaces.” He kind of sets up an expectation of the narrative that is told throughout the land about elves. You know, of course we later learn that that is not really true.

ALYSSA: In the next scenes, Geralt and Jaskier are ambushed by a devil. It turns out to be a sylvan. They are then knocked out and wake bound in a cave attacked by elves. Elves have been exiled from Dol Blathanna by humans and Filavandrel, the elven king, must choose between peace and an attack on the humans. Between Jaskier’s exposition in the previous scene as well as the conversation between Geralt and Filavandrel here, we're, again, seeing the theme of race relations between humans and elves. So, we're just seeing it in a very tangible way, where we're actually seeing elves and Geralt interact as opposed to hearing about some of these pieces secondhand from Yennefer's conversation with Istredd.

JESS: The elves have their origins and how they were like this powerful nation of people. And then to see them now here in kind of a hut and they're threatening to kill him. But I think that's out of fear because they've been ousted out of their home. They're essentially refugees. The kind of language that they're using is very similar to what you hear about refugees in modern-day. Why would someone want to leave their home? You don't do that just for fun. You do that because you've been ousted essentially because there's all these factors that contribute to leaving a certain place. So, sure, they're a nuisance, but they don't want to be a nuisance, right, necessarily. It's just kind of they have to survive. So, I think this is where you kind of see the state of elves where they are in, present day. Yeah, it's definitely an allegory for, I think, refugee culture, unfortunately.

ROBIN: Yeah. And what you say, like, about the stories you tell and, like, what I said earlier about the narratives. Like, when I was reading it, I was expecting, like, elves that you see from, like, Lord of the Rings, ethereal beings with their long dresses and, you know, spotless hair and gladiatorial-esque. And then they get introduced here like, yeah, they look like they've been living in caves for years. I was taken aback, but it makes – of course, it makes a lot of sense. I'm interested in cultural history and about the way that people give meaning, but also about how they tell stories about the past and how people view the past and how that changes. The people on the continent, they really see elves as something that should be gone or they think they're a nuisance, you know, at best, whilst, you know, they, they have a whole different opinion on history and what happened. And you see that in that scene very much.

ALYSSA: We see, in this scene, Filavandrel talks about the great cleansing. And this is something that Yennefer had briefly mentioned in her scene, where she confided in Istredd that she was quarter elf. She mentioned that her father was killed in the great cleansing. We learn more about it here from Filavandrel’s first-hand account. He says that the great cleansing was digging a grave for all of his loved ones. And we do get a few reaction shots from Jaskier here as, I think, the reality of the elven experience is kind of washing over him. I think it, ultimately, makes the history of the continent a lot more interesting for us as an audience, because we're able to see it over the course of multiple perspectives. It's very easy to see yourself as the good guy when there's no other perspectives for us to experience as an audience. When we see the different facets of a confrontation and the stakes at play, I think it makes the situation a little more complex and much more interesting as an audience.

ROBIN: Yeah. Well, what you talked about in earlier episodes about the short story with Renfri in the book, he mentions the, the lesser evil thing here again. And it's really that discussion between Filavandrel and Toruviel. Geralt thinks that they should just adapt. And they should try to live with humans. And, and Filavandrel is, like, you know, “I can't do that because, you know, the same thing would happen again.” It seems like a conversation you can't really get out of. Geralt then says, like, “It doesn't matter what you choose. You come up bloody on the other side anyway. So, it's just better to try and adapt and just make your own life better.”

ALYSSA: Yeah. So, this was something that we spoke about briefly in the last episode of the podcast, Episode 16 with Cyprian and Reza. We talked about how adapting the lesser evil as the introduction to Geralt's character was actually a pretty smart move on the writer’s part, because it sets up his entire morality. And it affects it throughout the rest of the season. And this is, as you're saying, is a prime example of that. We're seeing how his experience with Renfri and being forced to choose the lesser evil is now impacting how he advises others. At the end of the scene, Filavandrel is confronted with the task of killing Geralt and Jaskier. In the following scene, we find out that he actually let them go. And that Geralt gave Nettley’s 150 ducat to Filavandrel. On the road, Jaskier also begins to compose, Toss a Coin to your Witcher on the promise of “changing the public's tune about Geralt.” It ends up being the resounding theme for not only this episode but for the entire series as a whole. It's one of the most memorable songs in this series. And Toss a Coin to your Witcher is now, like, part of the public consciousness, which is kind of weird.

JESS: Yeah.

ALYSSA: It's really interesting. Like, you'll see it, like, on barista tip buckets now. Like—

ROBIN: Oh, man.

JESS: Is it?

ALYSSA: Mhmm.

JESS: Oh, that's so cool. 

ALYSSA: There were a lot of pictures, shortly after the series came out, of, like, people going to coffee shops and, like, on the tip bucket, it would just say like, “Toss a coin to your barista.”

JESS: Ooh.

ROBIN: Ooh.

ALYSSA: And there were a lot of them. But, like, it's crazy to see, as I said, like, how much this story has entered the public consciousness since Netflix’s episode released. When, you know, we were talking about it, you know, in summer and fall last year and it was just the existing fandom. No one had really heard of it. It was still quite niche, because it was a bunch of nerds talking about this Polish series. And, now, it's much bigger. Toss a Coin to your Witcher and the cultural prevalence of it is a testament to that as well.

JESS: Before the show came out, I think a lot of people were trying to draw comparisons between this and Game of Thrones because Game of Thrones was just ending, right? So, people were saying, “Oh, if you're missing Game of Thrones, there’s this new show that’s about to come out. It's a new fantasy series and a lot of the production team attached to Game of Thrones actually are working on this show too. So, obviously, the comparisons can be made. But, even just the impact, as you said, it is similar to Game of Thrones. Like, my coworkers know the show, and it's, like, awesome. Yeah, I too was also very surprised. In so many different countries, it was like the number one streamed show. So, yeah, it's really popular. That's really cool.

ROBIN: I think the comparison to Game of Thrones may also not be really fair, because Game of Thrones is, is more political than fantasy. And the Witcher is a lot more fantasy genre than Game of Thrones ever was. There were some dragons. There were some people doing random magic, but it was more political than it ever was fantasy to be honest.

ALYSSA: As you said, like, maybe, like, the first two seasons, there wasn't really much magic in Game of Thrones at all. But, here, magic and, as you said, fantasy elements are just baked into the worlds. Umm, it's impossible to talk about the Witcher without talking about the fantastical elements that make up the environment. It makes it interesting. It makes it fun. I think the comparison that happens most often is that The Witcher is less like Game of Thrones and more like Xena Warrior Princess. Like, like, it's a little bit silly. It's a little cheesy. And I think that works with the context of the books.

JESS: Yeah, I mean you mentioned on the podcast the source material is actually very funny. I mean there's a lot of action and drama going on. But there's a lot of like funny one-liners. There's comedy, you know, imbued in it. So, when you have someone like Jaskier come on screen, he's kind of like the comic relief. But he's really just being funny. And it's nice to have that balance of drama and comedy. Whereas, I think Game of Thrones was kind of like – I don't remember it being funny. I do remember chuckling at like random lines, but only because, like, someone, like, dished out a sick burn. But, like, no one was actually trying to be funny.

ROBIN: This show didn't really feel funny. It was very serious, and everyone was dying. And, “Oh, my god. What has Cersei done now?” You know, that kind of stuff.

ALYSSA: And it's not just that, let's say, like, the script or the writers are trying to be funny. Like, of course, there's, like, written comedy, but the characters themselves, even if you read the book – like, just the personality of the characters, they're funny. They're comedic. They're sarcastic. They play off each other well. And I think that that was like masterfully done on Sapkowski’s part when he wrote the series. The characters feel very real. They feel very three dimensional and fleshed out, which is why the comedy never feels forced at least reading the books.

ROBIN: Jaskier sings something about what happened with them in the cave. And Geralt was like, “Oh, that's not how it happened. You know, I thought you just had new respect for what the elves are going through.” And Jaskier’s, like, “Well, respect doesn't make history. We have to make a spicy story, because, otherwise, people won't listen to it.” And that caught me thinking, like, about something we learn with history in university. Like, in the 19th century when history was becoming a real science – you know, “real science,” most sources were from the States and the kings and the queens and the parliament, who had like a huge set of documents. So, they wrote a lot about that quickly available stuff. In the 19th century, the culture was mostly the idea of the White Man's Burden. So, it was very much a white history, great men's history, and, you know, few great women here and there; Catherine the Great or Queen Elizabeth, I. You know, but it was usually what we call a great man's history because there were a lot of larger than life men that they talked about. And that's a construct. We get told that repeatedly. Like, history is totally and completely constructed. And there are so many perspectives that sometimes don't get attention. Since the 60s of the previous century, there were a lot of historians that were like, “Hey, can we like talk about working-class or women or non-Western peoples with the rise of feminism and decolonization?” Since then, we have like a lot of different perspectives. And history is written by historians and constructed by historians. And that it's not fact, that it's not truth, and that we basically create our own truth. That's really what Jaskier kind of says. Respect doesn't make history. Usually, we just write a story that has a very nice narrative. We don’t want to talk about – like, in the Netherlands, we don't want to talk about our trade history, because, you know, in the end, there was also some slave trade involved. And there was also some colonization involved. And, you know, you don't want to talk about that, because it's not a national pride. But we do have to talk about it.

ALYSSA: Mhmm.

JESS: Yeah, Robin, what you were saying is totally true. The way that you portray history is so important. And it affects people's perception of the truth. There's actually a quote by Imelda Marcos. So, she was the first lady of the Philippines to Ferdinand Marcos, who was a terrible dictator in the Philippines in the 70s to 80s. And she recently had a documentary put out about her. And they interview her in the documentary. And she says things like, “Perception is real. The truth is not.” And, so, that line, ooh, it's just – first of all, it makes me angry because I know what kind of malevolent things that whole dictatorship was involved in back in the day. So, it really goes to show that, if you perpetuate a fallacy, people will believe that. People kind of believe what they've heard and how they experience thing. They're not really interested in how certain things actually happened. They're kind of affected by this perception. So, that's why perception is real, and the truth is not. And that's kind of what Jaskier is saying. Respect doesn't make history. That's not how it happened. But, you know, I want to portray it in a certain way. I mean he's obviously not as, like, malevolent as, you know, a dictator. But, you know, he's just trying to keep things interesting. But it does tie into that overall theme, especially when we're talking about the elves and who's telling their story and who we're hearing it from in each point of the episode. Perception is – I don't know. It's, it's kind of slippery.

ROBIN: Yeah, because it's a slippery slope from respect doesn't make history, because I just want to make a fun story too. I don't agree with this thing that you're saying and your perspective on history. So, I'm just going to say that our country or this regime did everything right or, oh, I don't really want to talk about slave history in the Netherlands, because I think it's just a blank page in our history. And, yeah, yeah. Or, a recent example, something I just recently talked about for my own podcast with our students. It’s that a historian who wrote a book about what happened in Yugoslavia in the 90s. What happened in Yugoslavia is that, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union – and they were a constructed country. There were a lot of ethnicities there. So, we now have Serbia and Bosnia. And they got – had turmoil in the 90s. And, also, there was a group of Muslims living in this area. And I don't know exactly how it went. But the point of the Dutch involvement was that they were defending a certain region called Srebrenica. Something went wrong. It was a UN Peace Mission. And the Dutch government and the Dutch military had asked for air support from other countries supporting them with, with militia, but they didn't. And they were doing it themselves. And they had two little weapons. And then the Serbians attacked. And they couldn't really do much else but surrender. And what happened is that the Serbians took away some of the men, the Muslim men, and killed them. And that was a very horrible thing to happen, of course. Blame went the way of the Dutch and the Netherlands. The perspective was, “Oh, the Dutch government did it wrong.” And, therefore, you know, in the Netherlands, they don't really want to talk about it. And I interviewed a historian for our own podcasts who wrote a book about this. She interviewed women from this area, who lost their brothers or fathers or husbands in this. And the government kind of tried to stop her from writing this book. They didn't really do it in the way of, “Oh, you, you can't write it at all” or taking away press freedom. But it was mostly just like that they were not giving her any money for it. Like, you get money for doing a research. And she wasn't going to get it, because she was writing a book on a topic that the Dutch government really didn't want to talk about. So, yeah, that is a way of putting a perspective on a story, on history, something that really happened that, within a country, some stuff you don't want to talk about it, because it doesn't fit the narrative or it doesn't fit the way that you want to see yourself as a country. And, therefore, you don't talk about it. And it really ties in with what Jaskier says in, “Respect doesn't make history.” So, we're not going to talk about something that makes us uncomfortable.

JESS: Yeah. It's so interesting that Jaskier’s kind of debating, “Oh, that's not how it happened. It's such a throwaway line. But it really just brings together everything that you just said. And, also, you know, how it relates to all the different perspectives that we've been hearing of all the elves. Like, the opinion of elves and where they are in society. It's so funny when a show can do that, where it's just like a simple line, but it just means so much. And it ties in so many different things.

ALYSSA: Storytelling is really fascinating, especially in our current culture, just because, like, it shapes everything as we've seen in both pop culture as well as through politics. I think especially being in an age where everything is so technology-based, like, people are paid to create content that's specifically made to be consumed. We, as people, have become the product for advertisers and et cetera. There's an emphasis on the commodification of storytelling. That's why businesses use influencers to try to create more organic content. We create narratives both on an individual level and culturally and shared consciousness as we've talked about. It's very powerful. And I think, as both of you have mentioned, the stories that we see repeatedly are the ones that are ultimately going to have a long term effect on culture and on history. You know, this episode illustrates that really beautifully in Jaskier’s rendition of Toss a Coin to your Witcher and all of the supporting plot points that we see throughout the episode. We're going to revisit storytelling and the song, Toss a Coin to your Witcher, later on the episode. But, before we do, we're going to turn our conversation back to the plot in Ciri’s storyline. In Ciri’s storyline, she escaped the siege of Cintra, eventually, ending up in a Cintrian refugee camp. The camp is attacked, and Ciri is saved by another refugee, an elf named Dara. Ciri’s storyline is quite short. Three days after the battle, she's wandering through the woods alone, avoiding Nilfgaardian scouts. She meets a mute boy, and they share a small rat as a meal. Ciri spots a Cintrian refugee camp and goes to it alone.

ROBIN: Ciri’s theme is actually introduced in the previous episode, but her theme is stated here again. She picks up the branch, I think. And she is, like, standing ready to defend herself. And then that theme comes up. And then – yeah. I think Sonya did a really good job to place those themes not randomly but on character moments. And that's what happens here too.

ALYSSA: Yeah, the scoring is really excellently done. After Ciri spots the refugee camp, she enters it alone, where she's confronted by the reality of common Cintrian people and the perception of the crown and Calanthe. She meets a boy in this refugee camp, who we see as wearing an entire necklace of elf ears. He then brings her back to his family's tent. And she meets his family, who were rather well off.

ROBIN: Very smart that they put the elf ears in there, but also how the mother of this family's being mean to the dwarf that they have with them. It just points back to that prejudice and racism that just lives in this world. And they mentioned Filavandrel actually before we met him with Geralt and Jaskier. So, that's also very smart of them. They really managed to tie all the storylines together by giving them themes and taking, like, the right short story to fit with what they wanted to talk about. You see that here again, because they mentioned Filavandrel before we even meet him. And we see the elf ear. So, we already know. Like, we have an in-world example that people are prejudiced against elves.

JESS: Yeah, I like that your perception of elves and who they are as a people and what has happened to them and what they've done in the past is kind of peppered throughout all the different scenes that are stitched together. So, depending on what scene you’re on, you hear something completely different about the elves. And you learn something new each time that they get brought up. So, in this scene with the guy, he has the, the elf ears, like, strung along his neck. It’s out of vengeance, essentially. In his perspective, the elves caused his family a lot of pain. And he, you know, wanted to seek revenge. So, you know, he's collecting these elf ears pretty much implying that he's been killing them. Yeah. Like you said, he'd mentioned Filavandrel. It's so interesting to see a different perspective amongst the three of us who were talking about how the elves have essentially been persecuted. They're kind of like refugees. But it's interesting to hear the other side of someone who sees them as the villain. They see themselves as the ones who have been persecuted as opposed to, like, the other way around. On both sides, people are being hurt. And they're inflicting hurt on other people. So, I like that you kind of get like a 360-degree view of who the elves are depending on which point in the story that you're at. And then, by the end, you have, like, this full picture of who's hurt, who's lost, who's taken in each side of the battle that – that's kind of been playing out throughout history.

ROBIN: Yeah, because this boy's brother was killed by elves, right? That's why he feels, like, he needs to get revenge. Because his brother was killed by elves, so, he's like, “Oh, elves are bad. So, it's good that I kill them.”

ALYSSA: And there's potentially a very specific cause and effect that happens throughout the course of this episode. We're seeing Filavandrel’s character arc starting with Geralt. And then he becomes kind of this, like, faceless Phantom, you know, by the time we reach Ciri’s storyline. And something interesting that happens, I assume, between the two is Geralt tells Filavandrel, “Instead of taking back Dol Blathanna in blood, go somewhere else. Build your own colony. Like, you don't have to resort to bloodshed. You don't have to go on this conquest.” He tells Filavandrel to abandon Dol Blathanna from what I understood. And then, when you go to the scene in Cintra – in the Cintrian refugee camp, we hear from this boy. Ciri doesn't know what Filavandrel’s uprising is. So, this boy is to tell her that, apparently, Filavandrel tried to claim some Cintrian land. And that's when his brother was killed. That's why he feels resentment against elves. So, I wonder if that's a direct correlation, you know, over the course of however many years between Geralt’s storyline and Ciri’s storyline, but if Geralt had a hand in suggesting Filavandrel go elsewhere.

JESS: Oh, that's right. Yeah.

ROBIN: That makes so much sense.

JESS: Because I guess you don't really realize it how the timeline fits together. So, essentially, Geralt’s plotline is kind of happening in the past, and Ciri’s happening in the present. So, yeah, that is an interesting point. Yeah, where he's trying to kind of take back land. He's pretty much, you know, a nationless, like, leader. And he's trying to kind of build it back up, and then kind of backfires.

ROBIN: It's, it's also kind of a cycle of revenge. Filavandrel’s, like, “Okay. But the great cleansing, they killed everyone I loved. And our babies fertilizer for their crop.” And he feels very vengeful towards humans. Then maybe, you know, if you're following along, your theory then – he’s like, “Okay. Well, we got to find a new place to live. You know, start over. Be better.” And then he maybe killed this boy's brother. And then this boy is like, “Oh, elves are horrible. I'm going to kill elves.” And then the elves are like, “Wow. Humans are horrible. We got to kill the humans.” And then you keep going because they keep hurting each other.

ALYSSA: Yeah. I mean, again, it goes back to themes that we've talked about throughout this episode in regards to storytelling. Also, the conversation that I had with Cyprian I believe in Episode 3 when we talked about The Lesser Evil. Everyone's the hero of their own story. So, no matter what, they're going to continue to justify the atrocities that they're committing against each other. And that cycle is just going to continue. And that's a really key point in this episode, but also in the world as a whole. That ends up being important not just with elves, but also with other nonhumans as we'll see. The family of the boy with the elven necklace, the mother of the family's very kind towards Ciri, but she's incredibly rude to a servant that they have. He's clearly nonhuman. He has like slightly pointed ears from what I could tell from the picture. She says something like, “Don't worry. He's one of the clean ones,” when he goes to give Ciri shoes. Yeah. It's really – it's really jarring to see how kind she is towards Ciri and how, like, openly disgusted she kind of is. Yeah.

ROBIN: Yeah, because, in the next scene, like, she absolutely comforts her. She comforts Ciri. It's so interesting how morally gray they make people. Like, with this side character, who only shows at once, she's really, like, this representation maybe of how morally gray you can be, because she's horrible. And she's very prejudiced and a little racist and – well, it's like her society, her ideology in the world is like this. She also has this opinion about Calanthe, who is Ciri’s grandmother. And, you know, if only she knew she was consoling Ciri about a grandmother she actually really dislikes. And I think it's really interesting because this is a scene that is actually surrounded by two scenes with Yennefer if you look at it, like, how the plot in the – in the show is. And these scenes, in my opinion, really concern her difficult relationship with Tissaia. Yeah. She's a mother figure to Yennefer. And, in the tent scene, Ciri is comforted by a motherly figure as well. And I thought it was a very interesting contrast that you have Tissaia, who is a very stern person who is very tough love to Yennefer, and, at the same time, it's kind of juxtaposed with this motherly figure, who was very warm and kind. But then, at the same time, is also very mean to the servant that they have and from a family who hates elves. And she has a very strong opinion about Calanthe. So, it's a very morally gray situation.

JESS: So, in this part, I think it's the first time that you see the people's perspective of Queen Calanthe, because I think, previous to this, you're kind of just seeing her inner circle. So, her guards, Ciri herself, and, obviously, you know, coming from our own perspective when she was, you know, out there in the castle. So, it's so interesting to see that she essentially cuts off Ciri before she could say anything. Essentially saying that, like, she was useless and she's the reason why we're in this mess. Yeah, there was actually a part a little bit earlier when she's waiting in line to get food, Ciri is. And someone tells her like, “Don't cut in line,” essentially. And she said, “Well, this food was provided by the Queen.” And she pretty much says, “Well, what a lot of good that did us. You know, she's not as great as you seem to be implying.” So, that's an interesting contrast, because I think, towards the end, I mean, out of the whole series, I feel like a lot of the audience really responded to Calanthe. And people just love her and, like, think she's a badass. But it's so interesting to see how the people that she rules don't really agree with that.

ALYSSA: And we'll be able to dig into the complexities surrounding Calanthe’s character, because, you know, we saw her in her prime in Episode 1. Like, we got to see her as a queen. We got to see her as a warrior. We, ultimately, saw her death as well. Because of the nonlinear storytelling throughout the rest of the season, we'll be able to see her in different stages of her life as well as, like, people's perception of her as we've spoken about at length. Different facets of people's understanding of her based on who they are and what relationship they have to her. And it complicates her character. Like, in Episode 1, we think she's incredible. We think she's invincible. By the end of the episode, obviously, she dies. And then we start to unpack and learn more about the complexities of her character as Ciri does, too, but that doubt starts to happen in this episode.

ROBIN: Yeah, that's maybe also the plus of like having the three storylines in general. Like, we talked about, with the elves, you can really get what Jess already said. Like, the 360 perspective. That's, like, maybe the benefit of that three storyline situation.

ALYSSA: I think the way that I phrased it, in future episodes from this one – the ones that were previously recorded. It's interesting because, like, you're challenging legacy. And a lot of the building blocks of legacy and storytelling is really history. So, we're starting to see, like, the dismantling of that legacy and also, like, eventually, we're gonna end up seeing what happens when Ciri is confronted by the reality of that legacy to parts of it that she was completely unaware of because she was so close to Calanthe. Again, like, I might have talked about this either in the last episode or in future episodes of the podcast. It's hard to tell right now. So, the interesting thing about Ciri’s storyline compared to Geralt’s and Yennefer's particularly, is that Geralt’s and Yennefer's take place over a large chunk of time and certain parts of their stories feel very much like a monster of the week format. Whereas, Ciri just has one continuous arc that runs the course of all eight episodes. So, we're kind of just witnessing her journey into chaos right now over the first two episodes. Yeah. So, there's still a lot more for us to discuss when it comes to how Ciri develops over the course of the series. But this is just that first little hint of doubt.

ROBIN: I like what you said about, you know, confronting legacy. That really ties back to what we talked about earlier. Like, history and perspectives in history, but, personally, that may also happen that you have a personal view of a person and then something comes along and you hear something new about this person. And your perspective is totally changed. Like, I had that with my grandfather, because I experienced him when I was a child. And he was a very loving grandfather, who did fun stuff with us. And then, later, I had to hear from my father that, when he was a child, that he was actually very stern. And he could get very angry. And then that weird balance between, like, what I heard from my father about my grandfather and what I experienced myself. That's so different that you know a person a certain way and then you hear something else about this person, and then that shakes it up. And I think that's maybe what Ciri also has.

ALYSSA: Yeah, absolutely. In the closing scenes of Ciri’s storyline, Nilfgaard raids the Cintrian refugee camp. Ciri’s previous companion finds her, and they escape. This companion is an elf. And he introduces himself as Dara.

ROBIN: It feels like – a punchline is maybe not the good word. But, like, they talked all the episodes with Yennefer’s storyline and Geralt’s storyline about elves and prejudice. And then Ciri discovers that her new friend is an elf. And you're like, “Okay.” Maybe you get the question like, “What's she gonna do?” Because this is the perspective of elves in this world. So, what is she going to do? And, of course, like, she's Ciri. So, she just wants to be his friend as well. For me, it was kind of like, “Oh, wow. He's an elf. And the things that they talked about in a storyline, this is something that he experiences because he's an elf.” So, it ties it all back together again.

ALYSSA: And, again. I think this is a part of Ciri confronting her legacy. We're gonna dig into Calanthe’s treatment of elves in Episode 4, I believe, Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials. But she doesn't think that and expects that here when she realizes that her companion, Dara, is an elf. She's like, “Oh, you're an elf.” And then there's like this pause where you're not really sure what's going to happen. And, ultimately, she just says, “Thank you.”

JESS: Yeah, I think Ciri is just a nice person. Like, I feel like – I don’t know. It's just so nice of her to really just set aside politics and just realize this person helped me get to where I am. We find ourselves right across from each other again. So, I'm gonna set aside what that boy had told me – the guy with the elf ears around his neck. I'm gonna set aside all of the negative things that have been told to me. And she just kind of judges each person based on what they're telling her. So, when she noticed that the, the rich family was really terrible to their servants and saying all these terrible things, she kind of got two perceptions, “Okay. These people aren't great people.” Whereas Dara, he's, you know, been a great help to her. So, she kind of makes up her mind based on what's presented in front of her, how she's experienced their kindness or lack of kindness, and kind of not letting those tales of history get in her way of seeing like, “Okay. This person is good. This other person, maybe not so good.” So, yeah, I think it's good that she's making her decisions for herself.

ALYSSA: I wonder if it might be though out of ignorance or naivety. I'm not really sure how much she was exposed to living in the Cintrian Palace. 

JESS: Yeah, I was contemplating that too. As I was saying, you would expect a princess to know about the history of her people. But she did seem very guarded. And it seemed like the Queen kept her protected. So, she has kind of like this rosy-eyed view of the world. So, it's easier for her to overcome that racism, because she never had it to begin with. So, it's totally a blank slate.

ROBIN: Yeah, but, at the same time, like, I don't think she's much of a pampered princess either. I think she grew up protected maybe ideologically, but she's not afraid to get their hands dirty. And, like, how we're introduced to Ciri, we first see her in the – in the first episode when she's playing with those boys outside. And she's in disguise. So—

JESS: That's right. Yeah.

ROBIN: So, so, maybe she didn't grow up as super protected because I think she got out, you know.

JESS: Maybe the Queen tried to protect her, but, you know, she finds her way to get out beyond the walls of the castle. So, there's like something in here that's kind of like – she kind of does what she wants, even though, you know, maybe she was told not to. And she does have that survival instinct. Whenever she did one of those moves where she would. like. dye our hair with mud and stuff, I was like, “Good move, Ciri.”

ROBIN: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

JESS: You go, girl. I was like, “Wow, that's – that was a really good move. Like, I don't think I ever would have thought to do that.” But, yeah, so good for her.

ALYSSA: In these closing scenes between Dara and Ciri, ultimately, set them on their path towards some sort of safety.

ROBIN: They really thought it out. Like, how are we going to tie these storylines together? How do we make it feel like a whole? Like, that it's not three separate storylines, but that it's one episode. And that's what you really feel with that elf storyline and the, the world-building that you have here. Also, the mother figures that there's themes that they have in both storylines too. They will be important – the three of them. So, you connect them together already, even though they're apart. And I think that's really well done.

JESS: Yeah, that's a good point, because I remember reading some type of interview from the creator. And she said a lot of people weren't really sure why would you have these three interconnected stories where the timeline is – to the viewer, it might seem like totally wacky and totally doesn't make sense. Wouldn't it be easier if we just went through, chronologically, how it happens in the book? But, if you do it like that, then you'll have probably a whole season of television where it’s just Geralt and maybe Yennefer. And then Ciri doesn't come until – what – Season II or III? So, they had to kind of incorporate Ciri into the story. And they did that really well because you would think that – what was it – that monster of the week plotline wouldn't be directly related to Ciri, but they kind of find their ways to make sure every single thing is related.

ALYSSA: I think this episode is one of the standout ones in that regard. Like, how seamlessly the themes are integrated between all three storylines as you said, Robin. There's a couple episodes that do this. While I think the following episode, Episode 3, Betrayer Moon, does that well between Geralt’s and Yennefer’s storylines in terms of parallels to transformation. Huge props to Jenny Klein, the writer on this episode, for creating such a seamless, like, 360 perspective on these themes of race relations. Yeah. I think that was one of the biggest ones that we've covered so far. Like, I think that – that aspect of the writing was done really well.

ROBIN: And I think it's really difficult to keep that up, especially with Ciri. Like you said, like, Ciri’s storyline is one journey, and she's going somewhere. And I think it's really hard to keep that wholeness going on, because, you know, with Yennefer and Geralt, you're going to also do things that you won't be able to apply to Ciri. So, you won't be able to keep that up the entire season. But, in this episode, it's done really well. Oh, yeah, I agree.

ALYSSA: Before we get to our deep dive discussions, we are going to put a pause on this episode—so, that’s it for our show today! I’d like to thank Jess and Robin for joining us for this discussion and thank you to our hanza for listening. Next episode, when we return, Jess, Robin, and I will continue our discussion of “Four Marks.”

Outro & CREDITS

[Breakfast in Beauclair theme music by MojoFilter Media]

ALYSSA: Thanks for joining us at the breakfast table! For show notes, transcripts of each episode, and a complete list of our social platforms and listening services, head over to breakfastinbeauclair.com.

Breakfast in Beauclair is created by Alyssa from GoodMorhen. It’s hosted by Alyssa with the “Tidings from Toussaint” News Segment by Lars from WitcherFlix. The show is edited by Alyssa with the Breakfast in Beauclair theme by MojoFilter Media and the “Tidings from Toussaint” theme by Bettina Campomanes.

Breakfast in Beauclair is produced by Alyssa in New York City with Luis of Kovir, The Owner of The Churlish Porpoise, Arix the Godling, Katie (The Redhead of Toussaint), Jacob B., Mahakam Elder Joe, Julie, Sylvia of Skellige, Jamison, Ayvo of Gulet, Bee Haven of the Edge of the World, Jacob Meeks, and Sebastian von Novigrad.

Special thanks to Jess B. and Robin for joining us for this episode and our international hanza for their support.

Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil

 

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